Edwin_m

We lost Gizmo for a while yesterday but he turned out to be shut in a bedroom. He has a loud mew but usually doesn't choose to employ it in these situations. As the rest of the household has no sense of smell due to current/recent Covid, I had to go and sniff everything in the room to check for little accidents.

These were also used under Rule 55 when a train was stopped on the running line and not protected by any other means. Failure to do this could (and sometimes did) cause a catastrophic accident, so reliance was placed on lever collars for far more than preventing a damaged pantograph and wire and some operational embarrassment.

I think the electric ones are assumed to be able to regenerate most of the time, and revert to friction braking in the rare event that the supply can't take the regenerated power. So fitting rheo braking to a modern electric train is arguably a waste of money.

I think the 800 doesn't have rheostatic braking because it was expected to be on electric (regenerative) most of the time, and it was up against a weight limit in the DfT spec. The GWR ones were all converted to bi-mode but didn't get the rheostatic braking. GWR's 802s were specified (by GWR itself) with rheostatic braking and larger fuel tanks, reflecting their use on West of England services with much longer runs on diesel. I assume TPE went for the same configuration. It's the rheostatic grids that cause problems for Voyagers at Dawlish, but I haven't heard of 802s having similar problems.

Anyone have a photo of the rheostatic grid on the 802s? Perhaps something an aftermarket supplier could produce to go with the Electra vinyls? I think I'm promising myself one of these as a reward for if I get the layout back into working condition.

However, if two five-cars are coupled, the pans at the extreme front and rear are raised. This is to minimise the effect on current collection at the rear caused by vibrations in the wire set up by the pantograph ahead. If they can't raise either of those, they can raise one in the middle but are subject to speed restriction. This is unlike Pendolinos, which have two pans but only one can be raised at a time because there is a 25kV connection through the unit between them. Hence one can power the whole train and raising two would cause a short circuit if they bridged a neutral section. Conversely, 700s also have two pans but run with both raised, which is fine at the lower top speed and works because they two halves of the train are electrically independent. Interestingly the Class 810 units now under construction for East Midlands Railway will have engines in four of the five cars but will still need pantographs each end. It will be interesting to see how they work that one out. The bodyshells are also a bit shorter to allow 10 cars to fit at St Pancras - another one for Kato to go at?

The OLE people seem particularly inconsistent with how they identify their structures, although they are almost always present and legible and must be unique within a wide area - the structure number closest to an incident is quoted when requesting an emergency isolation. Traditionally it was a mileage and a structure number within the mile, with a one- or two- letter prefix from a grand scheme someone in the electrification department probably thought up on a quiet Friday afternoon (link below). But they don't always use the same datum as the mileposts, and about 1972 they changed from miles to km (so there's a big jump in numbers at Weaver Junction even though the prefix stays the same). More recent schemes such as GWML use the ELR instead, but still not always the same datum as the mileposts. http://www.railwaycodes.org.uk/electrification/mast_prefix0.shtm

There are plenty of digital records on the railway that identify position in miles and chains or miles and yards. For engineering purposes all work will be done in metric, but it has to be translated into other units for operators and to interface with legacy systems. To expand a little on the above, the Engineers Line Reference was first invented by the GWR I believe but later applied across the network. Each route has a three-letter code which is often vaguely indicative of the start and end points or a traditional name of the route. At some stage this was expanded by adding a digit in cases where the chainage would otherwise be ambiguous, so that any location can be identified by the ELR and chainage, and I think also any structure by ELR and the number/letters on the affixed plate. The 35 yard discrepancy at Wolverton appears to have been judged too minor to warrant a change of ELR. The Quail map for Harecastle also shows CMD3 for the old tunnel line, presumably because there may be assets still in someone's database (I believe Highways England use ELR for the disused rail lines that were transferred to them).

The text you quoted from Ahrons isn't particularly clear about which era some of his comments relate to. Equally I can understand why they wouldn't want to move the official position of a station even if a re-building moved the centreline a short distance. Lenton South is quoted as 125 27 in my Quail, so had moved a couple of chains since Midland days. But the Quail pre-dates the latest re-signalling so it may have moved again since (don't have time to check the Sectional Appendix right now). This is probably a matter of layout changes moving the nominal position of the junction (which obviously spreads over many chains anyway) rather than a change to the zero point. The comment about the missing quarter-mile around Bedford could also be a rounding up of a shorter distance, in some publication that only quoted quarter-miles. Interesting your link shows Birmingham to Derby as Down in 1857 - it's Up today.

Today Nottingham is at 123 miles 39 chains according to the Quail map (nominally measured at the midpoint of a through station) and the 123½ mile-post is still there. But this is measured via Melton Mowbray, the shortest distance at the time, so a present day London-Nottingham train actually sees decreasing mileage over the last three quarters of a mile from Mansfield Junction. However it is still travelling in the Down direction. I can't see any evidence of a change of mileage around Bedford that might relate to that lost quarter-mile. I suspect during the remodelling in the 1980s someone decided to iron it out, which suggests there is a bit of track somewhere in Bedford that has a rather ambiguous chainage. It probably isn't as much as a quarter mile now and possibly never was.

I believe it matches the posted mileage, at least as it was at the time. For example the WCML table (M1) gives "Route and MP mileage" starting at Euston, then at Golborne a second mileage row starts to show the MP mileage. This then re-starts at zero at Preston and Lancaster as I noted in previous posts. I haven't checked every table by any means, but if there are discrepancies elsewhere it may be a sign that the line has been re-miled in the last half-century. Agreed it's annoying that it only includes primary routes, or at least those that were primary routes at the time. But it would be a much thicker book if it included the whole pre-Beeching network. I used to share an office with the BR train performance team, who had a full set of gradient profiles (probably including many closed lines too) comprising multiple shelves of leather-bound volumes.

I'm not aware of any such - I only have relatively modern Quail maps. These show the non-Metrolink part of the MSJ&A being miled from Oxford Road, and then changing south of Altrincham to be miled from Central. There was a discussions somewhere, possibly on here, a few years ago about a picture showing a MR milepost on the curve from Moorthorpe to South Kirkby sometime in the 70s, with the correct figure for if the Midland mileposts had continued from Swinton. Perhaps a re-miling from zero at Burton Salmon explains this.

I believe the mileages have been unchanged for many years - as I explained further back, it's usually more trouble than it's worth to change them even if they get rather untidy with route closures etc. Those I mentioned above and below are the same in the Ian Allan gradients book where they are included at all, which is a reprint from about 1963. The mileage from Euston continues past Piccadilly, through Oxford Road, and along both the Windsor Link and the Ordsall Chord. It finishes at Windsor Bridge South Junction and Irwell Street Junction where the former L&Y mileage from Victoria continues towards Bolton or Wigan. At Ordsall Lane it "crosses" the mileage on the Chat Moss route which runs from a zero at Lime Street. That mileage is unusual in that it is ascending in the Up direction and also because both it and the mileages from Euston are used for different parallel tracks between Lime Street and Edge Hill.

Yes, the mileage changes at the former junction from 33 miles 26 chains from Dundee Tay Bridge, to 203 miles 11 chains from Carlisle via Perth and Forfar. One of many cases where an apparently random change gives a clue to railway history. I noticed on a visit to Ireland that north of Bray there is a modern change of mileage sign that even gives the origin points, where the mileage from Pearse via Dun Laoghaire gives way to the mileage from Harcourt Street.

The mileage to Manchester and Liverpool is continuous from a zero at Euston (via Crewe), with Piccadilly being 188 miles 67 chains according to a Quail map (not latest edition, but these things rarely change). The same mileage continues to Golborne Junction where it changes to a zero a short distance away at at Newton-le-Willows junction, the original starting point for the northward branch off the Liverpool and Manchester. This series continues to Preston where it re-starts from zero and does the same at Lancaster, so this part of the WCML does indeed reflect its early history. It re-starts at zero at Carlisle, which is the zero point for most of the Caledonian.

One of the links above suggests early 60s but from childhood recollections I would say about 1980. They are certainly a lot more conspicuous painted yellow. The relevant text is also quote in a linked article, suggesting that posts are required every quarter of a mile but there's nothing there that prevents them being changed. Might cause a problem in future if they decide to replace them with metric measurements for ETCS (which works in metric so has speed restrictions in km/h) or any other reason.

That must be a fairly delicate balance considering the amount of single line and the distance between sidings in some cases. Does the 70-80% conceal that on most days trains meet their schedule and then there are "bad days" when the schedule totally collapses? Time of arrival is important to freight customers too. I can't help thinking that a European-style fixed schedule might serve all parties better than the sort of semi-fixed arrangement you describe. It is a tenant that has some rights, albeit perhaps not defined very well. The precise limits of those rights are probably the main question at issue here. I'd say the big picture for VIA is very similar to Amtrak, though the detail is different. Both are at the whim of government as to what (if any) routes and services they can operate, and both rely to a large degree on co-operation of the companies that control most of their track. But most of both networks (measured geographically if not in number of trains) are the sort of long-distance service that can never be competitive with air, and has to survive on tourism and/or funding as a social necessity. There are some medium-distance corridors where a more favourable government attitude (more funding, getting tougher with freight operators etc) could introduce some extra viable passenger services. There are a few where the size and separation of city pairs might justify high speed rail, which would be competitive at longer distances than conventional speeds. But there's never going to be the sort of nationwide passenger network that existed in the mid-20th century when commercial air travel and interstate highways were largely non-existent.

Nothing I've seen contradicts the Midland mileages following the principles set out in the link above, once later changes such as the Whitacre cut-off are taken into account. This incidentially disproves the enthusiast myth that all Midland lines were miled from (or Up towards) Derby. In more recent years there has been a great reluctance to re-number or re-position mileposts, because so many operating and engineering documents rely on them. It's better to have a system that's confusing but consistent, chopping and changing mileages to reflect later closures and the occasional opening, than to have someone relying on an out-of-date document or knowledge with possibly disastrous consequences.

The last mile issue is indeed a big problem in the US, outside the Northeast and a handful of places elsewhere, although it's more of a last 10-20 mile problem when considering access to long-distance rail. Related is the lack of a culture of using public transport. Most places haven't had a useful rail service in living memory and buses tend to be a basic service for those with no alternative, something the sort of person who might use rail probably wouldn't consider and affected also by racist attitudes in many places. Federal and state administrations also tend to see spending on transit as a subsidy and spending on highways as an investment, far more so than in the UK. If more cities could get all this sorted out then the benefits would far exceed better access to long-distance rail. However Canada has much better local transit overall, and VIA doesn't do noticeably better than Amtrak. Good access to the stations won't help much if train journeys are still too long (in time) to be competitive with air, too slow to be competitive with car, or too unreliable. This then leads them to a vicious circle of reductions in service frequency, which means that for many journeys there's only one train a day but a choice of several flights.

I assumed that was the case, but it still comes back to the railroad not having enough sidings to run the traffic it wants and needs to run. It may be that the schedule works if nothing untoward happens, but a random problem "snowballs" into more widespread disruption because there isn't enough flexibility in the system. The same applies to the railroad's own time-critical freight in the 23 or so hours of each day when there's no Amtrak/VIA service nearby.

Both of those suggest there aren't enough sidings to run the service. If a passenger has to take the siding to pass a long freight, then how do two long freight pass each other? [I'm assuming the "saw-by" is not a viable option for a modern operation.]

As the winning candidate noted in a piece on the BBC, MPs don't have the opportunity to stop HS2 as they've already voted in favour. And national LibDem policy is in favour of it even if locally she was against. However local MPs can and should have a role in holding HS2 to account if their actions unreasonably affect the constituency. I believe all the other main candidates also stated their opposition, so I suspect this result is far more to do with other political issues, which it would be against the forum rules to discuss.

So, whatever they are called, do the "schedules" plan the timings and meets of the freight trains and include Amtrak? If so then these trains shouldn't be spending long times in sidings unless the plan is bad, something is disrupted, or the railroad doesn't have enough sidings to handle the traffic it is trying to carry. I've already mentioned the impact of Amtrak station stops on average speeds.

This is the link to the set of plans covering Curzon Street and approaches: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-plan-and-profile-maps-birmingham-spur It comes out of Curzon Street on viaduct as mentioned, clips the corner of the Freightliner terminal and crosses the Derby line at the old Saltley power box to follow its south side past the depot on the site of the Metro-Cammell works. It's then in tunnel almost to the edge of the built-up area - at one time it was proposed to run under the stilts of the M6 flyover.

Actually pretty similar. Most routes are limited by federal restriction to 79mph and freight will typically run at 70mph. Amtrak may get up to the full speed on suitable routes, but will also make station calls, but the freight has no reason to stop other than crew changes every few hours.